The Agoura High defensive end will roam the field as the scout team middle linebacker, in charge of the defense, his defense. He will line up next to his friend, Avi Golan, and the two will do what they were born to do.

Well, what they would have been born to do if they were 6-foot-3 and 255 pounds.

They are not.

They are quick and tough and mean, but they are not 6-foot-3, 255 pounds. No matter how hard they try, no matter how much they pray, they are not 6-3, 255.

That’s one of the reasons they don’t have starting jobs with the Chargers, which means they don’t have Friday nights to strut their stuff in front of family and friends in a packed stadium.

They work just as hard as everyone else

on the team, lift as many weights, run as many wind sprints and sweat just as much. But they are guaranteed nothing come game time other than a spot on the sideline to

During practice, they play as part of the scout team – which mimics that week’s opponent to better prepare the starting players for what they’ll see Friday.

It’s a thankless, obscure job. The worst part is that they aren’t assured any playing time come Friday night, no matter how hard they work.

“It hurts,” Lawrence said, patting his heart. “It stings. You look at the players above you, and it’s, `I feel like I’m that good. I’m pretty close to them. I don’t understand why I don’t go in if they need a break.’ No, it’s only if the score gets run up so high. Now the game doesn’t matter. So now you go in.

“You go in when it doesn’t matter.”

On the scoreboard, maybe. But for a scout-team football player, it’s all that matters.

Lawrence may not know it yet, he may actually try to deny that those last three minutes mean anything.

But look into his eyes, past the hurt and the anger, past the pain, and he lives for those three minutes.

They all do.

“At the end of games, we only get to go in if we’re either up by a lot or down by a lot,” Golan said. “When there’s not much that I can mess up, and there’s someone in there that’s not that much better than me, I feel like I could get a minute or two.

“Would it be enough? At least it would be something. At least, I could tell my parents I played.”

That might be the toughest part of all this, the long walk through the front door, the gaze from a father’s eyes.

The disappointment.

“My parents are OK about it,” Lawrence said. “It’s hard at the beginning of the season, when coaches tell me, `Yeah, you’re going to get some playing time this year.’ And then having to explain to my parents at the very beginning, `Actually, no, I’m not. I’m not going to get a lot at all.’

“That was the hardest part.”

Peer review

Maybe the hardest part isn’t actually at home, but at school.

Every starting football player struts across campus with an air of invincibility. Every Johnny Quarterback gets a pat on the back and Timmy Tailback a, “Go get ’em.”

A scout player sometimes just feels invisible.

“The Friday of the Westlake game, we’re in class, and everybody looks at (quarterback Justin Arias) and says, `Good luck, play well,’ and then they looked at me and said, `Wait, you’re on the team?”‘ Poutier said.

“Yeah, I’m on the team. That’s the place where you feel down. People ask if you’re on the team, they don’t even know. The teacher says, `Congrats Justin Arias.’ And I’m sitting right there. It’s tough to see that.”

At Westlake, Thousand Oaks and Agoura, all agreed, teammates are different.

Teachers might only acknowledge those who get their pictures in the paper, but friends are friends.

“Our starters, all of them are humble guys, even the stars,” said T.O.’s Johnstun, a scout team running back. “No one puts you down because you’re not a starter. Anybody on this team recognizes that you’re still working hard. I don’t like the saying, `Role,’ because I don’t like this role. But people recognize it, and they don’t put you down.”

Better yet, the stars are usually cheering the loudest when a backup makes a big play.

“The whole sideline lights up like a Christmas tree when a kid who doesn’t (get an) opportunity gets one,” Westlake coach Jim Benkert said. “We had a kid last week score a touchdown against Calabasas, and he’s a kid who gets beat up every day in practice as a scout team running back. To have him get that touchdown lit up everybody. Those are special moments. Probably the best moments I have in coaching.”

The worst? Deciding when to put that kid in.

Gods of playing time

Benkert, Agoura’s Charlie Wegher and Thousand Oaks’ Mike Leibin all seem like nice guys, and each conveys a level of sadness when discussing the subject of when to play the backups.

For Benkert and Wegher, the subject is close to home.

Wegher was a high school star at Westlake and a college scrub at Cal State Northridge. Buried behind four or five guys ahead of him, he now understands how his players feel. Same for Benkert, who almost quit his high school football team because of a lack of playing time his freshman year.

Now head coaches, they have their thumbs on the red button.

“The hard part of it is, ultimately you have to put the team first,” Wegher said. “On the lower levels, you can do a little more of playing everybody. At the varsity level, you kind of owe it to the program to do the best you can to win the game. But you gotta find other ways to reward those guys, because they’re the backbone of the team. You don’t get better without those kids. I try to let them know how important they are for us.”

Yet, for a player, all that matters is playing time. They might say that they treasure the friendships or they like the exercise or they can’t imagine doing anything else.

But they say that Tuesday afternoons. Friday nights, they brood and they simmer. They look at the starters and think, “Hey, I can do that job.”

It’s a coach’s job, though, to determine that.

“You have to be brutally honest with them if they really want to know,” Wegher said. “That’s the hard thing. Sometimes they don’t ask. Maybe they don’t want to know. Hopefully our coaches are looked upon by our kids as being honest, and hopefully they realize that we’re just trying to do what’s best for the program.”

Sometimes, Wegher said, what’s best for the program is having those kids play. Sometimes, it’s all that keeps them from quitting.

Pulling the plug

Lawrence has considered quitting. Golan and Johnstun, too. They all have. It’s impossible not to.

Hours and hours of work for what can amount to just minutes – or worse, none – of payoff.

A starter can point to his stats and say, “I did this.”

What can a backup say?

“I don’t know if there is anything,” Lawrence said. “There’s nothing I’m going to be able to walk away with. It’s not like I can say, `I had this many tackles, I had this many sacks. This many touchdowns.’ No, I had this much nothing. I don’t have anything like that. It’ll only be worth it because of the friends. Other than that, nothing.”

Those are feelings all backups struggle with.

“I think about it a lot, whether it’s worth it,” said Vlahos, a reserve offensive lineman for the Warriors. “But then, every time I start to feel it, something like this happens. Or Coach Benkert pulls me aside and says I’m doing a good job. It kind of brings me back in the game, keeps me going.”

McLaren agrees.

“Even if this season ended tomorrow, even if we went 0-10, I’d always think the juice was worth the squeeze. You’re out here with all your buddies, having fun. It’s something that, maybe you don’t look forward to during school, but once you’re out here with your buddies, you’re not really thinking about anything else.”

One play away

It’s a mantra, a tattoo on these players’ minds.

Things can change in an instant.

A fluke injury, even just simple exhaustion, and a scout team player can have greatness thrust upon him.

“It’s definitely worth it, because you never know,” Poutier said. “Somebody could get hurt, and then you’re right in there. I ask myself that question all the time, `Is it worth it?’ Long run, I think it is.”

Plus, Lawrence said, sometimes it just feels good to hit somebody. He goes out Tuesday afternoons, his time, and he lays the hat, because, well, it’s his only time to lay the hat. He meets with Golan in the halls, and they talk about giving it their all because, well, it’s their only time to give it their all.

“Every day, we just come in and, no, we’re not going to get playing time on Friday, but why not try and make us better?” Lawrence said. “Why not help us win? In the end, if we get a win on Friday – no, obviously we’re not going to get our names in the paper, no we’re not going to get anything in films – but it’s going to be cool thinking, `Our team is good, and somehow, someway, we helped them.”‘

But that’s Tuesday.

Three days later, Lawrence will have no glory. He will have no satisfaction.

He will stand on the sidelines like thousands of other high school football players, and he will watch. He has the best seat in the house, yet he’d trade it for one play.